Tears

When I consider Life and its few years -- A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun; A call to battle, and the battle done Ere the last echo dies within our ears; A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears; The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat; The burst of music down an unlistening street, -- I wonder at the idleness of tears. Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight, Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep, By every cup of sorrow that you had, Loose me from tears, and make me see aright How each hath back what once he stayed to ...

Spicewood

The spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky,In moist unchimneyed places, in a wind,That whips it all before, and all behind,Into one thick, rude flame, now low, now high,It is the first, the homeliest thing of all--At sight of it, that lad that by it fares,Whistles afresh his foolish, town-caught airs--A thing so honey-colored, and so tall!